This blog is intended to keep family and friends updated on our current adventures

Sunday, October 20, 2013

THIEVES, TOURIST AND RUDE PEOPLE

Thieves and tourists, in Paris,
they go together. If there were no
tourists there would be fewer thieves.
Before arriving in Paris, I
had read about several scams run by different groups of gypsies, usually women
and girls who target tourists, especially Americans. Let me say up front that we were not victims,
but several times young girls tried the “Petition Scam”. It goes something like this. Usually a teen aged girl approaches you and
asks, “Do you speak English.”. If you
stop and answer she asks you to sign a petition on some social issue, which she
has with her with some signatures already on it.
Once she has you stopped, the other girls in the group surround the
victim and will attempt to pickpocket them.
The best option is when approached just say “NO” very loudly or “GO
AWAY”.

While the ladies shopped,
Hansjorg and I were waiting outside of Galeries Lafayette, a high end department store. the
girls approached us. “NO, NO, GO AWAY”,
and they left us alone. So we watched
them for a while. They seemed to be
targeting tourists, especially the Chinese.
As the Chinese become more affluent and travel more, they are becoming
the new victim. They often opt not to
use credit cards, thus carry large sums of money. We watched as they stopped a tall Chinese man
and surrounded him. He finally escaped
the circle of girls, but I don’t know if they took anything. Many of the girls were spitting on the ground
as they milled about in front of the store.
One girl was taking the pen that she would hand the victim to sigh with and was sticking
it in her nose. First one nostril,
twirling it around and then the other.

We spoke with a store security
man who came outside and he explained to us that most of the girls were from Romania
and told us how their scam worked. He told us
that sometimes they do get arrested, but that the courts just let them go. They must be successful because we saw them
in other areas of the city that were frequented by tourists.

I had fun photographing them and
warning potential victims of their scam.
One older woman confronted me, telling me no to take photos. I just yelled back at her that I would take
as many photos as I wanted. Eventually
the girls moved on, but we later saw them again down the street in front of a
cathedral doing the same thing.

On a narrow pedestrian street
below Sacre Coeur we saw the “Three Card Monte” gang. Every couple of hundred feet, one would be
operating with his cohorts. Someone
working with him would play the game and win every time, but when the
unsuspecting tourist played the game, somehow they would lose. Go, figure.

Many Americans think the French
are rude. We never experienced this, in
fact our experience was just the opposite. They were
helpful when we asked directions and almost always spoke English. Once when wearing my backpack on a very
crowded Metro when a woman said to me in English that it would be better if I
took it off so I wouldn't hit anyone with it.
She was polite, not rude or demanding.
She was smiling when she made the suggestion.

I did happen to see an Ugly
American. We were in a very busy cafe
for lunch. The place was full and the
waiter was moving quickly through the tables.
There was a group of older American women a table next to us. As the waiter came by carrying food for
another table, one of the women tried to get his attention. He indicated that he saw her, but continued
on with his tray of food. The women then
clapped her hands above her head trying to get his attention. Of course he continued on with his task,
while she had look of disgust on her face I can just imagine that when this
woman got home, she told her family and friends how rude the French were.

The other rude people we saw were other tourists. Waiting in line to go to a museum some would be pushy and cut in line. While waiting in line at a toilet at the Louvre, one woman pushed Cathie out of the way and entered the toilet in front of her and 2 other women. I guess she had to go.

So we had a good experience in Paris. I'm sure some have experienced the opposite, but I bet they experienced the same in the United States. Don't use such a broad brush in describing your bad experience.